Published: Thursday, 14th May, 2009 3:08pm

Councillor faces quit call over Icelandic banks fiasco

by James Kell

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THE LEADING councillor who oversaw the investment in failing Icelandic Banks is facing calls to resign.

At a meeting last night, opposition members said that Anthony Pollock should walk for his role in the fiasco which leaves Wokingham Borough Council scrambling to reclaim millions in lost cash.

Lib Dem leader Prue Bray said: 'The executive member has to take responsibility. He should have asked questions, he should have made himself aware of what was happening in the wider world of investment.

'I don"t see anything here to show he knew what he was doing and I have a really big problem with that.'

The council should be able to get back £4m of the £5m it invested in Landsbanki and Heritable, and a meeting of the Overview and Scrutiny Management Committee last night considered a report into what went wrong.

The report, drafted by the council"s Finance Panel says warnings on the state of the Icelandic economy were heeded by other local authorities but Wokingham officers did not bring that to the attention of Cllr Pollock or his colleagues.

The report also says Cllr Pollock did not attend the two annual meetings between officers and the council"s treasury management advisers Butlers.

Last night, scrutiny panel member Cllr Michael Firmager described that as 'scandalous' and said: 'I know it"s my party (Conservative) but councillors need this information. They are paid an allowance and they should turn up unless there is a good reason.'

Cllr Firmager argued that the council should only make British investments in future because it was 'safer', and added: 'We should be looking after ourselves first rather than looking for a fast buck.'

Cllr Chris Bowring said: 'I think it"s unreasonable to expect members to understand the minutiae of this, they have to take advice from officers. There are technical details which you wouldn"t expect a lay member of this council to understand.'

The Finance Panel made 14 recommendations in its report, aimed at preventing a similar scenario in future, including a less technical version of the Treasury Management Strategy for councillors, and further training for the executive councillor responsible for budgets.

The leading recommendation states: 'The council"s first priority when making investments should be security. The rate of return should be a secondary consideration.'

The Chronicle attempted to contact Cllr Pollock today without success.